Finding the time to NOT have fun

[Pirateiam]

I've recently gone AI in a game that was taking me almost 3 hours a day to play. It was a 12-hour game and, until recently, I was having a great time.

Recently, though, things have been going less well and I was having less fun. However, I was still a major nation - some may even have said I was winning. With a sudden increase in my work/study commitments, I had little choice but to abandon the game.

Well being Zapmeister's main antagonist in the game he left, I was sad he left since it has been a very interesting game. In fact I commend you on your strategic thinking. A couple times I had written you off and turned to other nations only to see you rise to one of the top nations. we proabably should have changed to a slower pace but we sure did get alot of turns in quickly. With you leaving it is basically now between me and Arco (Mark the Merciful) since you hurt C'tis pretty bad before you left.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Cainehill:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
I think alot of newbies would have stepped in. I often recommend it in fact. They have a ready excuse if they do bad because it wasnt their nation design. Gives an idea of a multiplayer game and all they have to do is play better than turning it over to an AI. Or at least, more surprising.

But ... If it's taking the original player 3 hours to take his turns, in a nation he built, where he knows what his plans were, how long is it going to take the new guy?

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They dont have to make all the moves. If they pull down the turn and just moves some pieces then logs off. Maybe later in the day he decides to tell some mages what to do. Or the next day he can tell the mages. The following day maybe look at build queues.

The thing is that he doesnt have to play well. Or even turn in every turn. The AI is too predictable for most players. So anything less predictable, even if its bad play, is better than AIing a player.

Actually one of the biggest surprise replacements Ive ever seen in a multiplayer game was where one of the players went stale-turn for a couple of weeks, THEN was put AI. The continual researching in one channel, saving up gems and gold, and casual advancement of other players into his lightly defended outer provinces; did a big turnaround suddenly. All defenses shot up. Global castings. Sudden large armies that surged forth. What a gusher!

[PvK]

I think my typical main suggestion for when the time to play gets too long, would be to reduce the frequency of turns. 12 hours is too short for late-game on a big map.

If as you say Zap, you also weren't enjoying it... well you can try to find a replacement, since different players enjoy different things. Meanwhile, consider Gandalf's advice of not doing everything every turn. Put as much as possible on repeated behaviour, do the important and easy stuff only and send in the turn. Another idea is look for things that would be fun for you to do in the game besides micro-managing everything, and do those things.

PvK

[alexti]

Few months ago I've found myself in a similar position. Being inexperienced, I've join too many games (and 2 of them on Orania) without realizing the time commitment (or maybe I hoped to be eliminated quickly). Fortunately, I had found a sub for one of those games (Norfleet was eager to try his skills without castles, VQ and clams ;->). In another game, I've decided to radically cut on micromanagement and allocated myself 40 minutes per turn. This way I've ended up starting from doing important things and gradually moving to less important tasks. For example, I've stopped watching taxes every turn, once every 5 turns was ok too. I've stopped ferrying blood slaves and built labs in all bloodhunting provinces. I've stopped trying to forge items ahead (meaning ones that I expected to need the next turn). Instead I was forging them as needed. Rather than building a castle regular way, I'd cast a spell, etc. It wasn't as optimal, but this way it was more fun than work. Fortunately, I was winning in that game anyway, so I didn't need to squeeze every opportunity.

But the lesson was learned and I'm not joining games on huge maps anymore. While they may be ok in the beginning, as players getting eliminated remaining empires become too big and require too much micromanagement for my taste.

For me the loss of fun factor is not due to high level spells, but rather due to big empires. Two best games went well into the late game with the research finished (one was on Karan with 7 strong nations remaining) and another was inland map with 5 major players remaining.

[Frosted Flake]

Have you considered not micromanaging everything. 3 hour turns boggle my mind!

frosted flake

[Zapmeister]

Originally posted by Frosted Flake:
Have you considered not micromanaging everything. 3 hour turns boggle my mind!

frosted flake

Actually, it was 90 minute turns, twice a day.
If I didn't play as well as I can, I wouldn't enjoy the game at all.

[Tuna-Fish]

IMHO, Sheap is right. For some strange reason people think that bigger map = more fun. In my experience, the best part of a dom game is the early and middle game, and the game just goes worse as it drags on, because in the endgame everyone has access to all tech and items, and esp. after some decisive castling you cannot really hurt the opponents all that much. I'd say that either figure out winning rules with what you will not have to occupy huge tracts of land to win, or play in such small maps that the map is not bigger than (preferred amount of provinces)x 4.

[Norfleet]

You just need to realign your sense of fun: Once your concept of fun is aligned such that it is no longer fun unless you are giving and/or receiving pain and suffering, it becomes much easier to handle games, and life in general.

After all, no pain, no gain. You stand to gain a lot in life if your tolerance for pain is above and beyond anyone else's.

[ July 20, 2004, 08:28: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Pickles]

You stand to get more pain for sure.....

Pickles

[Aikamun]

Post Deleted

[ July 20, 2004, 10:30: Message edited by: Aikamun ]